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Owners have paid $1M apiece for the 12 slots in the race, to be run at Gulfstream Park.
Photo by: GETTY IMAGES
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NBC Sports Group has reached an agreement with The Stronach Group to broadcast the inaugural running of the Pegasus World Cup, the richest horse race in the world.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
“It’s not a time buy,” said Jon Miller, NBC Sports Group president of programming. “It’s a joint venture property, really, is more of what it is.”
Miller did not provide details, but typically in such an arrangement the network works with the track company to sell the ad inventory and split the proceeds.
NBC has a one-year agreement to air a 90-minute broadcast of the $12 million race on the network. The Pegasus World Cup will be run Jan. 28, on the weekend between the NFL’s league championship games and the Super Bowl, at Gulfstream Park in South Florida.
“We are hopeful it will be an annual tradition. I believe all the inventory has been sold,” Miller said, adding that The Stronach Group executives took the lead on that sales effort.
NBC will bring the same Emmy-winning production talent to the Pegasus World Cup that it does to the Triple Crown, led by producer Rob Hyland. On-air talent will be announced in the coming months.
The Stronach Group owns Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, which runs the Preakness Stakes, the second leg of the Triple Crown. NBC and Stronach Group officials started talking in May at the Preakness about a deal to broadcast the new race, Miller said.
With a $12 million purse (about $7 million of it to the winner), the race is expected to draw the best horses from not only the U.S. but also from the rest of the world. The Dubai World Cup, with a $10 million purse, had been the most lucrative horse race in the world. The Breeders’ Cup Classic carries a $5 million purse.
In an unusual twist, the $12 million purse of the Pegasus World Cup will be put up by the owners of the horses in the race. There are 12 slots in the starting gate and each owner must pay a $1 million entry fee.
“It’s sold out,” said Belinda Stronach, The Stronach Group’s chairman and president. “We actually have a wait list.”
Stronach, the daughter of Stronach Group founder Frank Stronach, is a former member of the Canadian Parliament and served as minister of human resources and skills development from 2005-06 under former Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin.
Stronach noted that the idea for having horse owners put up the race’s purse was a risk, but one that has paid off. One of the 12 “stakeholders” owns California Chrome, the 2014 Kentucky Derby winner and winner of the 2016 Dubai World Cup, who is considered the best horse in America by turf writers.
“Some of our stakeholders have tremendous horses,” Stronach said. “Other stakeholders don’t have a horse, even, so they will be creating relationships, looking for partnerships, even, to make sure they have a competitive horse on the day of. They are also able to sell their slot.”
Stronach said the company wanted to create something different to generate new interest in horse racing. “NBC has been our partner in the past [for the Preakness], and we think they deliver the world’s best horse racing content,” she said.
Miller said that NBC is going to cover the stories around the horse owners and other stakeholders who bought a slot for $1 million.
The deal is just the latest investment NBC has made in horse racing. It has all three Triple Crown races as well as the Breeders’ Cup signed to long-term deals. Earlier this year, NBC announced that it would broadcast Great Britain’s premier racing event, Royal Ascot, on NBCSN in a multiyear deal, starting in 2017.
